Here, you are urged and encouraged to run your mouths about something important.

Friday, October 29, 2010

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE WANTS HOLDER TO MONITOR VOTER INTIMIDATION

U.S. Rep. from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston) is apparently trying to leverage two things in her favor while reaching out to Attorney General Eric Holder - she's black and she's a Democrat. Perhaps she was further emboldened by how the New Black Panther Party case of voter intimidation was handled by Holder's department. Lee is calling on Holder to send people to her district to monitor what she is calling instances of voter intimidation. I'm not making this up.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether tea party groups are intimidating black and Hispanic voters in her district.

Jackson Lee has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to send poll monitors to her district on Nov. 2 to make sure the King Street Patriots, a local conservative voter turnout and tea party group, aren’t stopping people from voting.

“Many of these incidents of voter intimidation have been occurring in predominately minority neighborhoods and have been directed at African-Americans and Latinos,” she said in the letter. “It is unconscionable to think that anyone would deliberately employ the use of such forceful and intimidating tactics in 2010 to undermine the fundamental, constitutional right to vote.”

The Politico article goes on to say that the King Street Patriots are openly welcoming such visits. In fact, in light of what was revealed last week, Lee may be overplaying her hand as there are written accounts from poll watchers in her district that she herself was electioneering at voting booths in her district.

Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Houston) violated election laws when, on Tuesday, October 19 [corrected: date was wrongly noted as the 18th], she entered into Acres Home Multiservice Community Center, walked to where the voting booths were looking for the poll watchers, greeted voters there, and then found and confronted the poll watchers before being directed to, and then asked by, the presiding judge Bernard Gurski to leave the area.

Let's get this straight. An elected official is electioneering at polling stations within her district, is asked to leave for violating the law, and then that same elected official complains to the U.S. Attorney General that voter intimidation is taking place.

Huh? It gets better. Lee apparently tried to confront the alleged voter intimidation first hand while electioneering illegally at the polling station:

While this occurred, the poll watcher heard Lee loudly say to the crowd in the voting area,”I’ve heard a lot of complaints about voter intimidation by poll watchers. I am not going to allow voter intimidation.”

The poll watcher started writing the incident down.

Lee then went to the poll watcher and asked,”What’s your name? Who do you represent?”

A poll watcher is not allowed to speak in the polling area, so directed Congresswoman Lee to the presiding judge. The poll watcher said that Congresswoman Lee indicated that she wanted names to report to the Department of Justice for voter intimidation.

Perhaps we are witnessing some unintended consequences for the leadership of the Justice Department after they so egregiously dropped voter intimidation charges against the Black Panthers. A U.S. Representative allegedly breaks election laws and is attempting to intimidate those who upheld those laws through the U.S. Department of Justice.

We're about to see if Eric Holder has any limit at all to how low he'll go.